Many animals can give birth without mating

We think of virgin births as a miracle, and for humans they would be. But for many animals, virgin births are a choice

• By Melissa Hogenboom

We have written before about the strange but spectacular phenomenon of virgin births, or “parthenogenesis” as it’s known.

Some animals are fully asexual and do not need a male to give birth: for instance, some species of whiptail lizards. But there are also animals that can mate with a male, but do not always do so, and they are the ones we are considering. Read more.